"Preseason results mean nothing"

I think some results do matter. Some don't. I would look at each game and these two questions: How strong is the opposition? How close is United's team to the likely starting formation during the season?

If a bunch of youngsters get a chance, the result doesn't matter. If United plays against another team that gives a bunch of their youngsters a chance the result doesn't matter. If United fields a team that looks like it has a reasonable chance to actually play this way during the season against a reasonable strong team, than I pay attention to the result.
 
AndySmith1990 said:
The last half a dozen or so league games last season were also meaningless, apparently. Seems most of our (poor) performances these days mean nothing, or there is always some reason why we shouldn't read anything into them. Normally because we have to wait some arbitrary length of time before we're allowed to criticise
Click to expand...
A manager needs 3 years and 600m before being judged. But only at Manchester United.
 
Van Gaal beat Barca in preseason and then lost 2-1 at home to Swansea
 
I miss when we used to smack the living hell out Asian and American teams on tour. I think it would help to give someone like hojlund some confidence.
 
AndySmith1990 said:
The last half a dozen or so league games last season were also meaningless, apparently. Seems most of our (poor) performances these days mean nothing, or there is always some reason why we shouldn't read anything into them. Normally because we have to wait some arbitrary length of time before we're allowed to criticise
Click to expand...
We obviously threw all these games to put together and train a masterplan against one team and one team alone. Spurs.
 
tenpoless said:
Van Gaal beat Barca in preseason and then lost 2-1 at home to Swansea
Click to expand...
Not sure what these kind of posts are supposed to mean. In the PL as well you can beat City one week, and lose to Wolves the next week. What can you learn from that?

One match doesn't necessarily have to speak for how good a team is, or how they'll do in the following matches.
Doesn't matter if it's pre-season or PL or CL.

I'm sure Arsenal fans weren't over the moon beating City 5-1 and then losing to Newcastle 2-0 the following match.

Neither does it mean that Newcastle beats City 7-1.
 
It would be good to see how preseason results over time / the first 5 games of the league line up with business being done.

We always hear the line that it's good to get players in early to bed them into the squad, but is there any 'data' to back that up?
 
We lost our last 2 friendlies so, agreed. Will update this post after our next friendly.
 
Last edited:
I've never taken the results seriously, but some examples such as the terrible pre season we had in 2013/14 where Sevilla came to OT and ran rings around us, were clearly indicative of what was to come.
 
Surely you'd want to take into account the standard of opponents if trying to do some sort of statistical analysis? They vary so much, a lot more than you'd play in the league. Would want to see how close teams were to starting their season too - one team's third friendly could be their opponent's first, would it think it impacts fitness levels etc.

I don't think they matter too much unless you're losing 3-0 or worse , or clearly getting outplayed. Nobody wants that.

You can write off a 1 goal defeat easily as it only being pre season, and a lot of the 2 goal defeats too. Was thinking that when watching the United v West Ham one the other night when were winning 2-0 and it ended up 2-1. 2-1 ok for West Ham, but if we'd have scored the third goal of that game it could start to dent their confidence a little bit ahead of the season.
 
Last edited:
tenpoless said:
Van Gaal beat Barca in preseason and then lost 2-1 at home to Swansea
Click to expand...
He did but there were other reasons for that poor start imo.

We'd basically told a good percentage of that team they were going to be sold which is why we ended up losing 4-0 to Milton Keynes a few days later. Kagawa, Zaha, Welbeck, Hernandez and a few others played a key part that pre season but were eventually replaced by Di Maria and Falcao etc by September.

The vast majority of the team from last night will play v Arsenal and all (aside from maybe Hoijlund and a couple of the younger lads) will be involved throughout the season, which is a massive difference to that first season under Van Gaal.
 
Last edited:
Damned if you do, damned if you don't it feels.

I'm just hoping that they bag the wins and take that confidence into the season. Who knows how it'll all turn out.
 
After Van Gaal's debut season, I care little about pre season results.
 
So far so good! Obviously not the strongest indicator of the season to come, but we'll take whatever positive signs we can.
 
I'll tell you what. Better we do well in pre season than being crap even before the season starts.
 
Winning is good obviously, but it's much more about whether the results were deserved based on the performance and not just because someone scored an unlikely goal.

Then you of course need the games to work on tactical stuff and fitness.
 
The final score means nothing.... but the game means everything. Last night and the game against West Ham. showed me that this teams approach to this season is much more focused than in past seasons. We look quick, and crisp. We look like our chemistry is developing nicely. Our additions in Cunha and Meumbo are thought out puzzle pieces that show me direction.
I could give two shites if we go out and score 20 goals over this USA stop, but showing a unified approach and willingness to be better and further along than some anticipated at this early point in the season means a lot to me.
 
I just think we look really fit and ready to play proper football games.

Arsenal on the other hand looked really sluggish against Spurs from what I saw, Gyokeres especially so.

Only a little over 2 weeks until we play them now.
 
simonhch said:
Probably an equal or greater correlation with the phases of the zodiac and One Direction album release dates.

The only way data is ever relevant is if the variables are constant. The PL season points average is the closest to constant because outside the promoted sides the teams are all the same - even if their players and form vary - , the first ten games average is limited in value because it’s heavily influenced by the fixture calendar, and the pre-season results average has so many variables as to be statistically unusable. Location, conditions, climates, international tournaments, signings, and of course - the biggie - opposition. Beating MLS sides, and smaller teams is very different to all PL or top European sides. This data is absolutely worthless from a statistical relevance perspective. It’s only worth is as a talking point to support confirmation bias or refute emotional reactions to the latest pre-season result. As this is coming from someone previously trained as a data scientist, and who uses data analytics and modelling on a daily basis.

It’s not worth the pixels it’s typed on.
Click to expand...
Even the prem can be misleading. We were 17 points of relegation last season. In 21/22 and 22/23 that would have had you around 8th and 10th respectively. Even with the winners with higher points totals than Liverpool last season. The last two seasons it’s been 15th. Some of the teams that spent big last couple of seasons and didn’t get Europe will have to tighten their belts and you can see it in the transfer window. Course plenty of time to go yet.
 
pelterz said:
Even the prem can be misleading. We were 17 points of relegation last season. In 21/22 and 22/23 that would have had you around 8th and 10th respectively. Even with the winners with higher points totals than Liverpool last season. The last two seasons it’s been 15th. Some of the teams that spent big last couple of seasons and didn’t get Europe will have to tighten their belts and you can see it in the transfer window. Course plenty of time to go yet.
Click to expand...
I was thinking about something similar earlier this week. Last year there were a legit 8-9 teams that could have had a legit case for Europe football. Hell, we may even have that many from the premier league in the various European comps.
This year, I think it will be a lot less as those teams near the top aside from your City, Arsenal and Liverpool group have really been picked apart. Makes me think that the same amount of points would put us much higher up the table.
 
OverratedOpinion said:
I just think we look really fit and ready to play proper football games.

Arsenal on the other hand looked really sluggish against Spurs from what I saw, Gyokeres especially so.

Only a little over 2 weeks until we play them now.
Click to expand...
This is the biggest positive from preseason so far for me. We look really fit overall and really sharp aside from a few players. Still questions to be answered tactically but at least we look fit again. Perhaps that’s what Amorim was referring to all along in regard to needing a preseason with the squad ?
 
They really don't though. Think back to pre-season under LVG, we absolutely demolished everybody in our path, playing fast paced relentless football. It meant absolutely nothing.
 
I don’t know, I’ll take a bit of confidence and positivity going into the new season. This group has been hammered for being crap and useless for more than a year - won’t hurt to instill a bit of belief.
 
Imagine how depressing it would be if we were already getting hammered in pre-season. At least there are signs of progress in terms of tactics and style of play and we look much fitter.

Hopefully this current trajectory continues, we don’t get embarrassed in our first few fixtures and really start to click as we head into winter.
 
It is always preferable to play well and win.

Will be meaningless if it doesn't carry over to the real stuff.
 
elmo said:
We were shit against the Malaysian all stars or something
Click to expand...
Yeah but that was like 2 hours after the Villa game. I imagine no one on that plane wanted to be there.

I'm not looking too much into these last 2 games nor the next 2...but getting their heads right by scoring and winning is only a positive. Don't think it correlates too much to how they'll start the season but it sure as hell is better than going into it with the thoughts of "we're still shite". I'd rather them go into it with thoughts of "maybe we're not shite and we can throw last season in the trash."
 
The most important thing for us is to form the bonds of a cohesive team.
It looks like we are starting to.
Good signs.
 
You have to give it to Amorim when he said judge me when I have my own players and a pre season. He has certainly turned the same players he has to keep around, so far. Be great to see Cunha and Mbuemo starting, with Dorgu and Amad backing them up.
Sesko I'm unsure about as our main striker, thats if we end up with him. Hes a young player and we havent done well in German league players, so far. His numbers havent been extraordinary over there either. Could be another Hojlund and I know folks will say, so according to that we should never buy a young player because of one failure, but I would prefer Watkins out of the two. Another premier proven like Cunha and Mbeumo. If we do end up with him, hopefully he proves me wrong.
 
Results don't matter, but things like fitness and time to work on cohesion and integrating new players does. Usually if a team looks cohesive then that bodes well for the season.
 
For this season in particular pre season is huge. Gives the team and fans confidence while also allowing Amorim to show the club he knows what he's doing. Get some positivity back.

Imagine if we'd lost against West Ham and Bournemouth. The negativity would be off the charts.
 
Performances matter more than the results, because nobody is at full strength in pre season, so you could beat a madrid team full of young players or lose because you played different players each half etc.
 
Results can swing a bit during preseason games due to a lot of factors but overall I think the football in preseason usually says a fair bit about what the manager tries to do with the team.
The football we played in our last 2 is most likely a good indicator of what we will try to do against Arsenal.
A good organized press, quick passing through the middle, playing forward a lot and try to stretch defenses with the wingbacks to give some space to our dangerous nr 10s.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.